1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fastening mechanism, and more particularly, to a fastening mechanism for fastening two circuit boards that are separately disposed to space apart in the casing of an electronic device.
2. Description of Related Art
The installation of servers becomes essential and critical for the technology and manufacture industries. With the increasing powerful functions of the server installation, more and more electrical components are required to be configured in electronic devices, which in turn necessitates more circuits to be disposed and connected to the circuit board, including the heat-dissipating fan additionally adapted for increasing the performance of an electronic device, leading to a crowding and disorganizing configuration and causing inconvenience in disassembly due to the crowded circuits disposed in an electronic device.
Due to the maturity of a multi-layered circuit board technology in recent years and the integration of circuits, it is commonly adopted that a number of component circuits that need to be disposed closely in the mainframe board such as a flash memory battery, a hardware wire, and a fan controller are integrated to form an integrated circuit board. After integration of multiple circuits a bridge connecting board is then electrically connected to the mainframe board, allowing the mainframe board to obtain full information from each component while reducing the space occupied by each component to be disposed therein.
However, the bridge connecting board used for electrically connecting the mainframe board and integrated circuits is only electrically connected, a flip loosening problem is likely to occur in drop tests and shock tests. Since a bridge connecting board transmits important signals relating to an initial power-on stage, there exists a need in the art to develop an improved fastening mechanism that can securely fasten the bridge connecting card.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional fastening structure for a bridge connecting board is illustrated, a mainframe board 11 and an integrated circuit board 12 are electrically connected to two respective ends on one side of the bridge connecting board 10, the bridge connecting board 10 consisting of two positioning openings 101 respectively and inwardly disposed on both ends thereof, and a plurality of related hooks 110 is respectively provided on the electrical connecting points of the mainframe board 11, the integrated circuit board 12, and at a position adjacent to the bridge connecting board 10 that corresponds to said positioning openings 101 and is related to the installation of the bridge connecting board 10. When the bridge connecting board 10 is evenly and downwardly pressed by a user for being installed on the mainframe board 11 and the integrated circuit board 12, the related hook 110 is relatively moved to couple with the positioning opening 101, thereby affixing the bridge connecting board 10 to an electronic device by means of the coupling of the related hook 110 and the positioning opening 101.
However, in practical applications, it is often cumbersome and difficult to install a bridge connecting board to an electronic device, for a user is required to exert an even force on both ends of the bridge connecting board so as to install the bridge connecting board onto the electrical connecting grooves of the mainframe board 11 and the integrated circuit board 12. It takes time and repeated operations to be able to fixedly couple the related hook 110 with the positioning opening 101 and is inefficient and inconvenient to use.
In addition, there also exist a cost concern in the fabrication of a conventional fastening mechanism for a bridge connecting board. As can be seen from FIG. 1, the bridge connecting board 10 needs to be provided with a plurality of positioning openings 101 thereon, and so as a plurality of related hooks is required to be disposed on the mainframe board 11 and the integrated circuit board 12 that require separate processing steps, thereby adversely increasing the manufacturing cost for the bridge connecting board 10, the mainframe board 11, and the integrated circuit board 12.
Further, the disposal of the related hook 110 would undesirably occupy the valuable space on the mainframe board 11 and the integrated circuit board 12. Particularly when replacing the bridge connecting board 10, it is necessary to move the related hook 110 outwardly and that necessitates reservation of a space on the outside of the electrical connecting groove, adversely affecting the flexibility in using the space on the mainframe board 11 and the integrated circuit board 12.
Moreover, the fastening of memories (any one of S-RAM, D-RAM, SD-RAM, DDR-RAM, DDR2-RAM, RAMBUS) also share the same problem as described above. For example, the fastening method of a PCI card typically has one end thereof being affixed by screws, which often causes the PCI card unable to be easily inserted into the electrical inserting groove of the mainframe board, for if the screw is fastened too tight the other end may raise up whereas if too loose, it tends to sway. Therefore, how to provide a novel and improved method for fastening the bridge connecting board with other functional boards, is a critical need in the art.